“What's wrong? Could it be you're dazzled by this young master's peerless beauty?”
Cen Yao: “???”
Her lips twitched. Just as she was about to ask if his brain had gone bad along with his eyes, Xie Zhouxing suddenly raised his index finger and gently pressed it against his lips.
“Shh.”
His voice was extremely low.
“Something is coming.”
Cen Yao was taken aback.
Xie Zhouxing's gesture was casual, even carrying a touch of chuunibyou dramatics.
Yet his fingers were long and pale. Pressed against his lips, they only served to make his already excessively delicate face even more eye-catching.
Cen Yao's gaze uncontrollably drifted to his mouth.
How should she describe it?
His lips were full—the upper lip slightly thinner, while the lower lip was soft and plump, a very natural pale pink.
In the dim corridor light, that touch of color actually seemed exceptionally vibrant, like the prettiest peach gummy growing on a candy-shrub.
It looked so...
...kissable.
The thought popped up out of nowhere.
Cen Yao froze completely.
Before she could even feel ashamed of this ridiculous thought, her body had already unconsciously taken two steps forward.
Being blind, Xie Zhouxing naturally didn't notice her approach.
He tilted his head, intently listening to the sound drawing closer in the corridor. His curly golden hair hung by his ears, his expression unusually quiet.
Cen Yao drew closer and closer to him.
So close that she could even smell the faint scent of soap on him, mingled with the lingering metallic tang of blood in the laboratory.
So close that if she took just one more step forward and tilted her head slightly, she would actually touch him.
Cen Yao: “...”
Wait.
What was she doing?
!!!
A loud roar went off in Cen Yao's mind, and her heart nearly stopped.
She abruptly backed away. In her panic, her heel caught on a protruding tile on the floor, and she stumbled back three steps before barely managing to steady herself.
The next second.
Slap!
In the empty corridor, an exceptionally crisp slapping sound rang out.
Cen Yao had slapped herself hard.
She hadn't held back in the slightest.
The echo reverberated through the corridor.
Slap... slap... slap...
Her pale cheek swelled up at a visible rate, a burning pain rapidly spreading across it.
Clutching her cheek, Cen Yao fell into a brief moment of existential crisis.
What on earth had she been thinking just now?
This was a Horror Dungeon.
There was blood all over the floor, claw marks all over the walls, the air reeked of rotting corpses, and who knew how many monsters were lurking nearby.
Yet she had actually stared at the mouth of a strange man she had known for less than five minutes and thought he looked kissable?
Cen Yao, wake up!
Xie Zhouxing was also startled by the slap.
He instinctively turned toward the source of the sound.
“Uh, friend?”
“What are you doing—”
Before he could finish, the shock on his face suddenly vanished.
Xie Zhouxing looked up.
His eyes, which had been playful just a moment ago, sank inch by inch.
He heard it.
That familiar, slimy scraping sound.
Shhh...
Shhh... shhh...
Something was dragging its body, rapidly approaching from the other end of the corridor.
Xie Zhouxing's expression changed.
“Run!!!”
His long legs immediately sprang into action, and he spun around to sprint forward.
After taking two steps, he suddenly realized there were no footsteps following him.
Xie Zhouxing paused.
“...Why aren't you running?”
Cen Yao was still clutching her cheek, deeply immersed in the shame of her temporary infatuation.
Hearing no response, Xie Zhouxing gritted his teeth and actually groped his way back.
Guided by his memory and the location of the sound he had heard earlier, he reached out into the air a couple of times and accurately grabbed Cen Yao's wrist.
“Hurry.”
He pulled her and started running.
Cen Yao was yanked forward, stumbling and nearly falling again.
“W-Wait—”
Xie Zhouxing ran incredibly fast.
Although he couldn't see, he seemed exceptionally sensitive to the terrain beneath his feet.
Every time they were about to hit a corner or debris, he would always swerve half a step in advance, even managing to avoid the slipperiest patches of blood on the floor.
Cen Yao was dragged along in a wild sprint.
At first, she was a bit dazed, but after running a few steps, her nose was suddenly hit by a strong, fishy stench.
It was completely different from the fishy smell of a regular seafood market.
It was heavier, fouler, and far more rancid.
It smelled as if a fish that had been dead for days had been sliced open, stuffed into a sewer to rot, and then baked under the scorching sun.
Cen Yao endured it for two seconds.
Ultimately, she couldn't help but look back.
And then she regretted it. Deeply regretted it.
She wished she could pay a fortune on the spot for a pair of eyes that had never witnessed such a sight.
Chasing behind them was a fish-headed man.
True to its name.
The thing had a massive fish head.
The head was large and flat, with massive patches of upturned scales that gleamed with an oily, dead-gray hue.
The gills on both sides flared open and shut, spraying foul-smelling mucus with every breath.
Its eyeballs bulged outward, cloudy and white, their rims webbed with dark-red blood vessels.
The most disgusting part was its mouth.
The fish mouth had been artificially sliced open and stretched, forcefully stitched into a humanoid slit.
Densely packed fangs protruded from the gap, with unswallowed threads of black flesh still hanging between them.
It possessed humanoid limbs.
Its arms were long and thin, yet the muscles bulged abnormally, and its skin was dotted with fish scales and pustules.
The nails at the tips of its ten fingers were long and black, with dark filth packed in the crevices, scraping against the floor with a grating screech as it ran.
Its legs were even more hair-raising.
Below the knees, countless fish tails of varying sizes had been densely stitched onto its skin.
Some were still intact, while others were halved, their rotting tail fins dragging along the ground.
With every step it took, those fish tails twitched and swayed, shedding scales in a flurry.
Once they hit the floor, the fallen scales actually twitched slightly.
As if they weren't entirely dead.
“Blegh—”
Cen Yao's stomach churned violently.
Under the combined assault of the intense stench, the visually shocking appearance, and the strenuous running, she finally couldn't help but gag.
Xie Zhouxing's face went pale.
“Holy shit!”
“Don't throw up on me!”
Cen Yao covered her mouth, her voice trembling. “I can't help it, it's too ugly... Do you have any idea how disgusting that thing looks?”
“I don't know, and I have no interest in knowing!”
Xie Zhouxing yelled as he ran, “You are not allowed to tell me! Hold it in, definitely hold it in! If you throw up on me, I will throw you away!”
Cen Yao was doing everything she could to suppress her nausea, utterly lacking the energy to argue with him.
The stitched-on fish tails flapping behind the fish-headed man were still thrashing.
Whenever she closed her eyes, that image filled her mind.
Making her want to vomit even more.
“Ugh...”
“Cen Yao!”
Xie Zhouxing's voice cracked.
“If you throw up again, I'm really letting go!”
Cen Yao wanted to curse at him, but her peripheral vision suddenly caught the increasingly familiar walls and iron doors ahead.
Her face paled.
“Wrong way!”
Xie Zhouxing didn't catch on.
“What's wrong?”
“The direction is wrong! We can't run this way!”
Not far ahead was the very corridor Cen Yao had just escaped from.
The tentacle-backed monster was still nearby.
Running this way was literally stepping from the frying pan into the fire.
Cen Yao forcefully yanked Xie Zhouxing.
“This way!”
She dragged him to change direction, charging down another fork in the path.
Xie Zhouxing was pulled so hard he nearly lost his balance.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“You'd better be!”
“If you keep talking, that fish-head is going to bite your butt!”
Xie Zhouxing's expression shifted.
“Then run faster!”
The two instantly accelerated.
The fish-headed man pursued them relentlessly.
As it ran, its gills constantly puffed, and a gurgling, bubbling sound echoed from its throat.
The deformed fish tails on its legs thrashed wildly, scales raining down.
A fish scale grazed Cen Yao's ear as it flew past.
Sizzle!
The scale embedded itself into the wall.
A small puff of white smoke immediately rose from the wall.
Cen Yao's heart leapt.
Even the scales it shed were corrosive?
“Duck!”
Xie Zhouxing suddenly yelled.
Cen Yao had no time to think and instinctively bent her waist.
A long, sharp claw covered in black sludge scraped over her head, gouging deeply into the wall.
Screeech—
The sharp screeching sound hurt their eardrums.
Cen Yao whipped her head around.
The fish-headed man had caught up, closing the distance.
Its bulging, dead fish eyes stared fixedly at her, and its split mouth tore open all the way to its ears, revealing a mouth full of fangs stained with dark blood.
That face was so hideous that Cen Yao completely abandoned any thought of looking at it a second time.
“Xie Zhouxing!”
“Run faster!”
“I'm already running!”
Xie Zhouxing gritted his teeth.
Though he was blind, his speed was ridiculously fast.
Cen Yao even doubted whether he was actually blind.
This guy dragged her through the corridor as if he could see perfectly, turning corners, dodging obstacles, and leaping over debris on the ground with unbelievable fluidity.
Rate on N.U.
